Last night EAP saw Ali and Ali: The Deportation Hearings and both of us had mixed reviews of it. The 80-minute show is set around two friends Ali Ababwa (Marcus Youssef) and Ali Hakim (Guillermo Verdecchia) who are staging a show called Yo Mama, Osbama, or How I Stopped Worrying and Came to Love the Half-Black President. It starts off pretty funny with a really cute two part opening about the 2008 U.S. elections, when the "hopes and dreams of America" were allegedly about to change with the news of Obama's win. There are some chuckles in the first fifteen minutes, especially with the addition and support of their "yellow" assistant Hong Kong, played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee.
However, the show begins its steady decline into mediocrity when RCMP Constable Dhaliwal (Anita Majumdar) enters and accuses the two of funding and thereby, supporting the Agrabanian People’s Front, which Canada views as a terrorist organization. She begins hearings almost immediately upon entering, demanding the audience act as witnesses. If convicted Ali and Ali face deportation, but not to their native Agraba, a fictitious war torn country, but to hostile Azerbaijanistan, also not real. We both thought it would have been more compelling to use actual places. If this is meant as a political satire that is supposed to make you feel something, which it clearly is, they should have hit harder.
The tone also does not sit well. It ranges from absurd to sentimental and it feels contrived and shallow. This time around Ali and Ali needed to go deeper into the political dichotomy of the west and bang out some serious satirical social criticisms. Being predictable with their jokes, staging and following popular cliches is no way to be progressive in a genre that thrives on being witty and cutting.
Be that as it may, the audience was definitely laughing and we were too. Ali and Ali are very charismatic. And they are also talented ad-libbers. When things went a bit array during one of their puppet scenes they had everyone in snitches including some of the other actors. The Obama/America bits were by far the strongest of the show. Somehow the more serious plot-line regarding Canadian Government actions didn't connect. Also the sub-plot of Constable Dhaliwal's familial troubles was under developed and ultimately went no where.
In some ways we almost wished that instead of Ali and Ali the Deportation Hearings we could have seen Yo Mama Osbama, the fictitious plot line introduced at the outset.
Ali and Ali... runs until October 17. Tuesdays to Saturdays, 8pm, Sundays, 2:30pm. $15-$32. Sunday matinees, PWYC.
Factory Studio Theatre, 125 Bathurst.
416-504-9971. www.factorytheatre.ca
However, the show begins its steady decline into mediocrity when RCMP Constable Dhaliwal (Anita Majumdar) enters and accuses the two of funding and thereby, supporting the Agrabanian People’s Front, which Canada views as a terrorist organization. She begins hearings almost immediately upon entering, demanding the audience act as witnesses. If convicted Ali and Ali face deportation, but not to their native Agraba, a fictitious war torn country, but to hostile Azerbaijanistan, also not real. We both thought it would have been more compelling to use actual places. If this is meant as a political satire that is supposed to make you feel something, which it clearly is, they should have hit harder.
The tone also does not sit well. It ranges from absurd to sentimental and it feels contrived and shallow. This time around Ali and Ali needed to go deeper into the political dichotomy of the west and bang out some serious satirical social criticisms. Being predictable with their jokes, staging and following popular cliches is no way to be progressive in a genre that thrives on being witty and cutting.
Be that as it may, the audience was definitely laughing and we were too. Ali and Ali are very charismatic. And they are also talented ad-libbers. When things went a bit array during one of their puppet scenes they had everyone in snitches including some of the other actors. The Obama/America bits were by far the strongest of the show. Somehow the more serious plot-line regarding Canadian Government actions didn't connect. Also the sub-plot of Constable Dhaliwal's familial troubles was under developed and ultimately went no where.
In some ways we almost wished that instead of Ali and Ali the Deportation Hearings we could have seen Yo Mama Osbama, the fictitious plot line introduced at the outset.
Ali and Ali... runs until October 17. Tuesdays to Saturdays, 8pm, Sundays, 2:30pm. $15-$32. Sunday matinees, PWYC.
Factory Studio Theatre, 125 Bathurst.
416-504-9971. www.factorytheatre.ca
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